A weight-loss injection could reduce the risk of heart attacks and benefit the cardiovascular health of millions of adults across the UK, in what could be the biggest medical breakthrough since statins, according to a study.
It found that participants taking the medication semaglutide, the active ingredient in brands including Wegovy and Ozempic, had a 20% lower risk of heart attack, stroke or death from cardiovascular disease.
The study, presented at the European Congress of Obesity (ECO) and led by researchers at University College London, also found that semaglutide provided cardiovascular benefits to its participants, regardless of their starting weight or the amount of weight they lost. This suggests that those with mild obesity or who have lost only a small amount of weight may have an improved cardiovascular outcome.
Prof John Deanfield, the director of the National Institute for Cardiovascular Outcomes Research and the lead author of the study, said the findings showed that the medication should be regularly prescribed to treat cardiovascular disease, and that millions of people across the UK were taking the medication in the next few years.
“This fantastic drug is really a game changer. This [study] suggests that there may be alternative mechanisms for that improved cardiovascular outcome with semaglutide over weight loss … Clearly something else is going on that benefits the cardiovascular system,” Deanfield said.
The study involved 17,604 adults aged 45 and over with a body mass index of more than 27 from across 41 countries. The participants, who had also previously experienced a cardiovascular event such as a heart attack, were prescribed either a 2.5mg weekly dose of semaglutide or a placebo for an average period of 40 months.
Of the 8,803 patients in the semaglutide group, 569 (6.5%) experienced a primary cardiovascular endpoint event, such as a heart attack, compared with 701 (8%) of the 8,801 patients in the placebo group.
Semaglutide under the brand name Wegovy is prescribed for weight loss on the NHS since 2023.
Deanfield said that statins — drugs that lower cholesterol — were considered a medical breakthrough and revolutionary in the treatment of cardiology practices in the 1990s, and he said semaglutide could be seen as similarly groundbreaking in improving cardiovascular health. “We now have a class of drugs that can equally reverse many chronic diseases of aging,” he said.
Prof Jason Halford, president of the European Association for the Study of Obesitysaid that since the medication can be seen to improve cardiovascular health, it may be economically beneficial for it to be widely prescribed.
“I think in the next 10 years we will see a radical change in the approach to health care,” he said. “Once the costs come down, the cost savings for the NHS will be significant. There are already people in the Treasury who are thinking about the savings to the economy as a result of the opportunity to increase productivity. You have to get your workforce as fit as possible.”
Around 7.6 million people in the UK are living with heart or circulatory disease, according to the British Heart Foundation.
Another study based on the same clinical trial found that participants prescribed semaglutide lost an average of 10.2% of their body weight and 7.7 cm from their waist over a four-year period, while the placebo group 1 .5% of their body weight and lost 1.3. cm from the center.
A separate study looking at a new slimming stick found that it could be much more effective than those already on the market. Retatrutide, a weekly injection, works by suppressing appetite and also by helping the body burn more fat, according to its phase 2 clinical trial.
The trial of 338 participants living with obesity showed that participants lost 24% of their body weight over a period of 48 weeks. Researchers say it is more effective for weight loss than Ozempic or Wegovy, which only work by suppressing appetite.
Prof Naveed Sattar, from the University of Glasgow, who has worked on trials of other weight loss treatments, said: “Five or 10 years ago we could never have imagined drugs that would cause this kind of weight loss. The trial suggests that retatrutide hasn’t plateaued yet, so it’s likely to see more weight loss. If we give this drug even longer, I think it can reach almost 30% of someone’s body weight.”
